d shake
the mattresses. Meantime the pounding had recommenced, in rapid,
irregular, blows, like the blows of a man's fist. The room adjoining
ours was the nursery. I went in with my light. It was empty and silent.
Bridget, with Tip and the baby, slept soundly in the large chamber
across the hall. While I was searching the room my wife called loudly to
me, and I ran back.

"It is on the mantel now," she said. "It struck the mantel just after
you left; then the ceiling, three times, very loud; then the mantel
again,--don't you hear?"

I heard distinctly; moreover, the mantel shook a little with the
concussion. I took out the fire-board and looked up the chimney; I took
out the register and looked down the furnace-pipe; I ransacked the
garret and the halls; finally, I examined Miss Fellows's door,--it was
locked as I had left it, upon the outside; and that locked door was the
only means of egress from the room, unless the occupant fancied that of
jumping from a two-story window upon a broad flight of stone steps.

I came thoughtfully back across the hall; an invisible trip-hammer
appeared to hit the floor beside me at every step; I attempted to step
aside from it, over it, away from it; but it followed me, pounding into
my room.

"Wind?" suggested Allis. "Plaster cracking? Fancies? Dreams? Blind
headaches?--I should like to know which you have decided upon?"

Quiet fell upon the house after that for an hour, and I was dropping
into my first nap, when there came a light tap upon the door. Before I
could reach it, it had grown into a thundering blow.

"Whatever it is I'll have it now!" I whispered, turned the latch without
noise, and flung the door wide into the hall. It was silent, dark, and
cold. A little glimmer of moonlight fell in and showed me the figures
upon the carpet, outlined in a frosty bar. No hand or hammer, human or
superhuman, was there.

Determined to investigate matters a little more thoroughly, I asked my
wife to stand upon the inside of the doorway while I kept watch upon the
outside. We took our position, and I closed the door between us.
Instantly a series of furious blows struck the door; the sound was such
as would be made by a stick of oaken wood. The solid door quivered under
it.

"It's on your side!" said I.

"No, it's on yours!" said she.

"You're pounding yourself to fool me," cried I.

"You're pounding yourself to frighten me," sobbed she.

And we nearly had a quarrel. The sound